Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts
v1.6.1.0 "Fixes & Optimizations"
This a necessary update fixing some issues that came with the latest new features of the campaign and further optimizing the game's content.
*v1.6.1.0*
- Added useful information in the Ship Design window, showing the active ship count for each design.
- Fixed of an old issue causing destroyers to not emit smoke screens when they were in the same division with other ship types, such as battleships.
- Fixed a rare code exception happening when a Major Offensive began from East Poland.
- Fixed rare issue not allowing to exit the constructor.
- Fix of wrong chance applied in Rebellion events.
- Fix of a UI inconsistency showing inverse chance for attacker in Naval Invasion (In AI events).
- Fix of an issue caused by nation intervention making alliances or wars to end prematurely without notice.
- Fix of an issue causing Tonnage count in special map events to not be updated fully.
- Auto-Design optimizations.
V1.6.0.9 is changing the campaign
You can now receive a new update which offers the following:
*v1.6.0.9*
- Added ability to control alliance and war declarations. When the player's nation is more powerful then it can ask the player to declare war against the weaker nation or not, according to relations. The weaker AI nation will not desire to declare war unless provoked. Similarly the weaker nations will usually pay the stronger for an alliance. Previously the player was only passively accepting events generated by the AI, so the new feature will provide much more freedom when to cause a war or pressure to ask for money, if the player’s nation is powerful enough.
- Minor nations which are allied with enemy major nations can now be targeted much more aggressively by the nation’s government. Now wars between nations become much more complex and each campaign playthrough can have many different outcomes, depending on the various war incidents that cause the intervention of the major powers. You can influence such attacks by amassing large fleets in a sea region of interest.
- Further tension mechanics to allow smaller nations which are very weak or have a too small fleet to increase the relations between other nations, who no longer consider them a threat.
- Improved the Campaign AI logic to create diplomatic actions measuring the relations and power of the other nations. For example, a nation which is very powerful or has good relations, will more likely receive positive diplomatic actions and vice versa.
- Improved the Campaign AI logic to balance the demand for new warships.
- Relation effects have been balanced to follow the new features.
- Fixed a minor UI issue when typing the name of a ship in constructor.
- Fixed some other minor issues.
v1.6.0.8 focusing on campaign
We continue to improve the basis of the game. Here is what we have readied:
*v1.6.0.8*
- Optimizations in the special event logic, addressing remaining issues of inconsistent chance to win and tonnage measurements. You will also now see in more detail for whom the chance is calculated.
- Fixed old issues causing VP to be sometimes wrongly given to the defender, even though he lost a province.
- Fixed copied design issues, causing overweight ships when building them. To prevent other kinds of issues, copying of designs is disallowed for ship designs gained as war reparations. Designs from war reparation will now be indicated with special transparent color in the Ship Design window.
- Similarly, to prevent issues caused by inconsistent refitting of a refit design on the same turn, now the system allows, correctly, to make a refit design of an existing refit design only if at least one ship of the refit design is built. Refit designs were always meant to work for existing ships, for ships that were built. The “New Design” option is what a player must use for making a new design.
- Further changes on the tension logic, allowing smaller nations to be able to not cause negative tension if they have a small fleet, which will not be considered a threat. An example is Spain, which previously was very hard to not become targeted by other nations and be brought to war. The tension system should overall be more flexible, allowing to influence alliances by positioning fleets accordingly.
- Several Campaign AI improvements, including its new ability to gather naval forces during peacetime against other nations which are in high tension with the AI.
- Improved pathfinding of task forces, refreshing promptly the task force movement on the map, triggering events, power projections calculations and meeting events on the right time. This also solves the issue of AI ships not being visualized sometimes, although they were present on a map region.
- Obsolete ships can now be built and sold (when mothballed) by the player, if he wants.
- When you click on a port you will now see which ships are unavailable to move, with their respective indication e.g. commissioning, repairing etc.
v1.6.0.7 speeding up the campaign
We are very happy to announce a new large update of Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. This update focuses on optimizing all aspects of gameplay and most importantly it has significantly increased the speed of campaign loading times.
After a period of beta testing, thanks to the really helpful feedback from all who participated in the beta and the collaboration with many players we finalized the update which offers the following:
*v1.6.0.7*
- Complete overhaul of the campaign system, greatly improving the loading times. When you start a new campaign the AI will use pre-made designs so the campaign will need a few seconds to start instead of several minutes as before. We will gradually enrich the pre-made ships to greatly increase the variability of AI initial designs.
- The campaign loading time between the shipyard and world map or battle and world map have been decreased significantly. Previously, according to how many designs the player and the AI had active, it would often delay too much to load the next game scene.
- Campaign turn times have also been reduced significantly due to refactoring of the related code.
- New options "Mixed", "Fast", "Slow" for starting the campaign, allow you to use the pre-made AI ships according to your liking. If you want to play in the fastest way, you choose “Fast” so all AI designs are pre-made. In “Mixed” mode only the starting units are pre-made and in “Slow” mode all AI designs are generated on demand, making it a full sandbox mode, but it will cost the most time during turn times. *Important:* Mods will be compatible only with the “Slow” mode.
- Fixed a minor auto-resolve issue, not causing adequate transport losses in “Undefended Port” battles.
- Several improvements in the auto-resolve system to make results even more consistent based on the power of ships. This will not be a "hand holding" mode for players. You will expect more sunken ships for the side that is inferior in techs and overall firepower of the fleet for both AI and player. Mods are not guaranteed to have the same results, as always, so if you want to test it out, you need to use the default game values (auto-resolve is affected not only by dedicated parameters but also cost and many other aspects of ships).
- Fixed and improved various aspects of Campaign’s Victory points system. You will notice the impact of submarine raiding of transports more noticeably and battle results will be much more consistent.
- Increased the impact of Crew rescuing/healing techs.
- Weight fixes in several late tech destroyers, which had very heavy towers and were very difficult to design, creating delays in the auto-design. These various destroyers of your fleet will gain free tons which you can use to improve them.
- Added shipyard capacity indication in Ship Design and Map interface.
- Technology priorities/penalties got a milder effect, addressing cases where technology could either be researched too quick for the era or it could delay too much the AI, when it used the priorities.
- AI units will now not be able to retreat in campaign battles where they "Fail to withdraw" as Task Forces on the map. They may still attempt to fight at a safe distance but they will not try to leave the map as before.
- Experimental more aggressive Division AI logic making the ships which are on screen or scout to behave more independently, often more effectively as the previous AI command. This change will also affect the opponent AI.
- Tension mechanics tuning to make tension more dynamic.
- Economy balances. Army cost affects the expenses more. Transport Capacity and Crew Training costs are more dynamic, and depend more on National GDP. Fleet maintenance and repair costs increased slightly. Shipyard capacity limit affects more the building times and costs.
- Various minor bug fixes.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed in the beta! As a small mention, we have fixed a few more bugs that you reported including the retreat button not working in some Task Force battles of the campaign.
Important Beta
We usually offer betas prior to the release of a major patch which includes new ships and 3D content. Now we make an exception because we have prepared something that should please the majority of the game's community,
The most frequent complaint of players was the occasional long loading times in the campaign. So we have addressed just that. Please read:
*v1.6.0.7* (Beta)
- Complete overhaul of the campaign system, greatly improving the loading times. When you start a new campaign the AI will use pre-made designs so the campaign will need a few seconds to start instead of several minutes as before. We will gradually enrich the pre-made ships to greatly increase the variability of AI initial designs.
- The campaign loading time between the shipyard and world map or battle and world map have been decreased significantly. Previously, according to how many designs the player and the AI had active, it would often delay too much to load the next game scene.
- Campaign turn times have also been reduced significantly due to refactoring of the related code.
- Experimental more aggressive Division AI logic making the ships which are on screen or scout to behave more independently, often more effectively as the previous AI command. This change will affect also the opponent AI.
This beta version should be fully compatible with your current saves (as it includes everything from the latest stable version). So you can continue your older saves or start a new campaign and use any of your current shared designs without any problem.
However, because it is a beta after all, it is advised to back up your saves, or start a new campaign with the beta in order to test it out.
With this beta, we would like to receive your feedback regarding the loading times, and if in the campaign you notice something not working right, such as the AI not following up the latest tech in its designs, does not refit often or there are pathfinding issues etc.
We also think that modders who occasionally want to restart their campaigns or pass several turns to see the impact of their changes, will find the new improvements welcome.
In order to participate in this beta, you need to follow these simple instructions:
- Find the game on your Steam Game Library and right click on it:
- Click on properties...
- ... and in the opened window, select from the list the "Betas" option. On the appearing list, select the "beta branch" to switch to the latest beta version of the game.
- If you want to switch back to the stable live version, repeat the procedure and select from the Beta list "None".
As usually, Beta Feedback can be shared in the Steam Beta Forum:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1069660/discussions/3/
or in the Official Forum:
https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/44122-beta-1607-fast-loading-in-campaign/
Small Update v1.6.0.6
We have some new additions that further improve the game. You can read below:
*v1.6.0.6*
- Fix of the bug that caused ships to freeze aiming and movement due to a code exception (very old bug) caused in campaign rarely when players saved a refit design which involved a change of guns and those ships participated in a battle the same turn. Hopefully this is the definite fix . Please report if you anticipate it again.
- Fix of another rare bug that could cause overweight ships due to a wrong save of engine data.
- Adjusted the ship damage model to make "All-or-Nothing" armor schemes more viable. Taking damage out of the citadel will have smaller impact so well protected ships will distinctively endure more damage.
- Gun accuracy improved slightly at all ranges.
- Shell dispersion logic optimization, addressing issues that could be caused at the edge of range for large caliber guns,which previously would not be able to find a firing solution.
- Ship maneuverability mechanics’ optimizations and fix of the reverse bug, that could make ships in division to not be able to complete their reverse movement. These changes also improve the way that ships maintain their division formations.
- Fixed auto-refit mode reducing too much the speed of the ships.
- Further auto-design optimizations, making it faster and more effective.
- Minor other fixes.
Small Update v1.6.0.5
We offer another small update with important fixes and improvements.
*v1.6.0.5*
- Fixed a memory leak which could cause a freeze prior to a campaign battle after long gameplay sessions. It is needed feedback if you ever get such a bug again, after this fix.
- Optimized ship acceleration logic. You should notice a battle fps increase and more consistent acceleration for ships during combat.
- Fixed reverse bug, causing ships to turn in one direction when executing a reverse, which created problems in their formations.
- Improved Battle AI division logic, the AI should attack more aggressively when it has many ships.
- Adjusted ship instability mechanics, so that it is easier to balance the weight offset.
- Gun aiming fine tunings, guns will be on average a little more accurate at closer ranges.
- Reduced further the Beam/Draught effect on accuracy and visibility.
- Campaign AI will be more effective in researching technology so that its fleets will be more powerful.
- Naval Academy funds increased for several missions to allow more flexibility after latest cost changes.
- Auto-Design improved to make better ships on average.
- Other minor fixes.
Small Update v1.6.0.4
We offer this patch which includes several improvements and fixes that were needed. Please read:
*v1.6.0.4*
- Improved AI task forces to actually try to escape and fight unfavored battles only if cornered.
- Important improvement on auto-resolve to give predictable results and not force the player to play too many meaningless battles.
- Task Force pathfinding improvements, also improving the consistency of engage distance for In Being / Sea Control radius for ships that are in port. Previously, sometimes, ships in ports would generate battles too far away.
- Further ship costs balances plus Campaign/Mission funds adjustments for compensation. The new costs will represent even better the combat power of ships, which aids the AI and Auto-resolve systems.
- Funnel capacity balanced so that the importance of funnels, engines and boilers is increased.
- Adjusted the replenishment rate for ammo and fuel of task forces, to increase the necessity of having allies and friendly ports nearby.
- Auto-Design optimizations.
- Battle AI adjustments.
- Ship visibility adjustments, fixing also the previous overpowered effect of beam/draught ratio which allowed ships to make ships too hard to spot or hit.
- Ship maneuverability further balances to increase the overall realistic ship handling.
- Shell dispersion logic improvements. Gun accuracy consistency increased.
- Fixed various possible (and rare) cases which could cause a code exception when starting a campaign battle and make ships to not be able to shoot or move, forcing the player to restart the game. If you still anticipate problems, please let us know.
Small Update v1.6.0.3 R
You can check the latest small update which we have just deployed:
*v1.6.0.3*
- Balanced the cost of torpedoes/torpedo propulsion. Electric torpedoes now are lighter but more expensive. The oxygen torpedoes are much more expensive. Speed of torpedoes according to propulsion has been re-adjusted.
- Gun accuracy balanced further towards realism.
- Shell ballistics balanced further.
- Long-barreled guns fire rate vs Short barreled has received slight re-balance.
- Crew losses Surrender threshold increased to 80%.
- Fire spread chance increases further according to structural damage.
- Fixed 7-inch damage error (it was lower than it should be).
- AI screen/scout logic improved to send ships in more effective attacking positions.
- Tension will increase and be more dynamic (as it was requested by several players, due to recent economic changes, tension calculations were too mild and it took too long to trigger a war).
- Ship turning rate, acceleration, maneuverability balances. Ships could turn too fast before.
- Improved auto-design to use guns of longer barrel length.
- Fixed a memory leak caused by successive battle starts.
Uploaded repaired version including:
- Tension mechanics adjustments, to have more consistent negative effects.
- Shell kinetic energy fine tuning (affects shell ballistics and penetration).
- Fixed some graphic setting issues. Vsync and FPS limit settings work more consistently. You may notice performance increase depending on your system.
You need to restart Steam to get this update
Hotfix v1.6.0.2
Here is another small update offering an important fix:
*v1.6.0.2*
- Improved saving system so that older shared designs that are not deleted as files, cannot corrupt a new campaign, when player re-used their name scheme.